NDP MP Pat Martin, known more for his tendency to spectacularly blow up than anything else, is at it again. Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning, he tore into Public Safety Minister Vic Toews on Twitter.

Toews had held a funding announcement in Martin’s riding without giving the MP a courtesy invite to the event. Maybe that’s something that Martin has a legitimate gripe about. It’s not shocking at a government cabinet minister might ignore an opposition MP, but, again, it’s something Martin could fairly object to. And object he did. And then some.

Recapping what he said wouldn’t do it justice. So, for your reading pleasure, find below some selected excerpts from Martin. (For all the tweets, go here. And just in case he decides to delete them, Maclean’s has a full index here.) And just to avoid any chance of us getting sucked into the Pat Martin lawsuit vortex, neither I nor the National Post endorse any of what follows below. We simply report what Martin himself said.

Again, you can see it all in its full glory over at his Twitter feed, but you get the idea.

The funny thing is, none of this is surprising. This is just something Pat Martin does every now and then. About a year ago he found himself in hot water for telling a citizen “fuck you” after the citizen sent him a snarky (but not profane) tweet. In spring of 2011, a Winnipeg political blogger reported that Martin had publicly accused two women, on two separate occasions, of being somehow imbalanced and a threat to his staff. (You can read a copy of his letter of apology to one of the women here.)

And then there is, of course, his infamous blowup against marketing company Racknine. Racknine was the company that made the robocalls at the heart of the continuing investigation into alleged dirty electoral tricks by Conservative partisans during the last election. In public comments, Martin blasted the company and its ownership for their involvement in this “fraud.”

Problem: Racknine had been co-operating fully with the investigation, is not responsible for the content of the calls that users of its services send out, and had already been cleared of any wrongdoing. Martin immediately attempted a full and total apology, but Racknine’s owner wasn’t satisfied and launched a $5-million lawsuit against the MP. In September, Martin was forced to launch an Internet campaign to raise funds for his legal defence, with a goal of $250,000. After two months, he’d raised just over $10,000.

If it sounds like Martin is a bit of a loose cannon, he is. But will this hurt him in the end? Probably not. As much as his foul-mouthed rants might offend many, they make him a hero to others. There’s a lot of people who don’t care that Martin is a bumbling, profane lawsuit-waiting-to-happen. They like the fact that he stirs the pot and launches bitter personal attacks on his partisan enemies. He’ll never go far as a politician like that, but there’ll be lots of people who adore him not because of his accomplishments, but because of his foul temper. He’ll give a voice to those who wish they had a platform to go after the Public Safety minister’s sexual morality.

In other words, Martin may not be a particularly effective politician, but people love him for that. The more he screws up and says stupid things, the more entrenched his supporters will become. Come to think of it, that kind of reminds me of another bumbling politician with a core group of die-hard supporters: Lawsuits, nonsensical rants, offending innocent members of the public with obscene gestures or comments…

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.